Pre- and Post-Katrina Excavations of Charity Hospital Cemeteries: A Window into the Structural Violence of Mid-19th to Early 20th Century New Orleans

Summary

Charity Hospital, established in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1736, was one of the longest running public hospitals in the United States, finally closing its doors in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina. During the period from 1847 through 1929, two cemetery sites—one located on Canal Street and one on Canal Boulevard—were used for the interment of many indigents treated at the hospital. Excavations of these sites, most of which occurred after Hurricane Katrina and some directly as a result of the storm, have yielded intriguing glimpses into the historic practice of medicine in New Orleans. The skeletal remains excavated from these sites show evidence of postmortem violence, suggesting that the poor of New Orleans were used as research and teaching subjects in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Orleans Archaeology at the Tricentennial   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 216